British Journal of Community Justice
©2015 Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 13(1): 93-104
THOUGHT PIECE
'Thought Pieces' are papers which draw on the author's personal knowledge and
experience to offer stimulating and thought provoking ideas relevant to the aims of the
Journal. The ideas are located in an academic, research, and/or practice context and all
papers are peer reviewed. Responses to them should be submitted to the Journal in the
normal way.
DOING TIME WITH LIFERS: A REFLECTIVE STUDY OF
LIFE SENTENCE PRISONERS
David Honeywell, Criminology Lecturer, Leeds Beckett University & PhD candidate,
University of York
Abstract
We constantly hear the public’s outcry that “life should mean life!” and that anyone
convicted of murder should never see the light of day again. This reflective study is autoethnographic drawing from informal interviews, observations and life stories with prison
inmates serving life sentences for murder with the aim of estimating the effect
incarceration has on their lives during their time in prison and how they prepare for
release through adopting new identities. Between January 1996 and February 1998 I spent
two years living closely with several life sentence prisoners during which time I gained
access and an insight into a secret world in which only a fellow prisoner would ever be
permitted. The mirror image of their tragic existences also gave me an insight into my own
disintegrating lifestyle which would eventually have the most profound effect on my own
desistance journey. The lifer culture was like a secret society which separated itself from
the rest of the prison subculture and hierarchy and yet was oppressed by and subservient
to the Criminal Justice System. At the core of this study is the ‘self’ and the changing
process that takes place throughout a lifer’s personal journey during the nurturing of their
own identities while preparing themselves for the outside world. It is also about their
views of the changing world around them and their relationship with the prison
population from which they were desperate to disassociate themselves from in order to
develop an identity that bears no resemblance to the identity they possessed before they
were imprisoned. This introspective transition from killer to respectable citizen was easier
than many would perhaps imagine because for these first and only time offenders, their
most alarming factor was their ordinariness.
Keywords
'Self’; identity; prison; prison culture; prisoners; lifers; auto-ethnography
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